eastern washington

we got back a few days ago from a week of vacation. we had a great time, as it's always refreshing to get away and out of the normal routine. it truly felt like a summer vacation as it was hot & sunny and tyler & i got to spend some good time together and were able to catch up on some R&R. riley and i's first stop was in seattle for a night to celebrate claire's birthday. there were babies everywhere as martha & henry joined up with us, as well as ang & ellie and erin & wesley.

tyler picked us up in seattle the next day and we drove to spokane for four nights. our main purpose was to attend tyler's ten year high school reunion, but we also got to spend a day with our good friends the bowie's as well as a day on tyler's aunt & uncles boat (the 100 degree day!) tyler, riley & i also had a morning to ourselves to get coffee, breakfast and a walk through manito park. we walked through the japanese garden and decided to do a little family photo shoot. (a little staged & cheesy, yes, but still some cute pictures, nonetheless!)

we left spokane and stopped in ellensburg and stayed a night with kristen, dj & cora. we had so much fun with them just sitting around and watching our babies play, as well as a nice walk, lots of yummy food and a late night hot tub trip for kristen & i. we had so much fun! thanks shooks for such a nice 24 hours!

i also need to announce that riley officially started crawling the morning i left for seattle last week! each day she has become more and more confident in her ability, so i definitely have a moving baby now!

ten on ten (8/10)

you can't really tell in this first picture, but riley was laying next to tyler and repeatedly backhanding him in the face - it was really funny! i'm not too impressed with the rest of my pictures - we decided to take a trip to ikea, so there are lots of car pictures. plus, i forgot to take pictures for a few hours when we were having lunch with the mcdonalds, so i had to make up for some lost time in the car. here's my best attempt at the ten on ten photo project today...

4 lbs of blueberries

it's blueberry season! i went picking yesterday morning with a few friends and i came home with 4 pounds of blueberries...wow! that's a lot! it's amazing what you can pick in less than an hour. we were distracted by two toddlers and a baby, so we all did pretty good, considering. tyler and i froze the majority of them, but i am already dreaming of blueberry smoothies, blueberry cobbler, blueberry muffins....yum.......

There is still sand in Riley's ears!

We had such a great time at the coast last weekend. The waves were nice, the weather perfect and Riley did great. We spent most of Saturday at the State Park where everyone else surfed and Riley, Doc & I cruised the beach, joined up with everyone for lunch then just did some sitting on the beach in the afternoon. That night we had the crab feed, campfire and even surf movies set up on a shower curtain! Riley slept great in the tent, although sharing a sleeping bag with a little one does not lead to a great night of sleep for Mom! It was really fun to watch Riley discover sand as she carefully watched it, twisting her hands every which way to get a good look at it. There was another surf session on Sunday morning, lunch then we headed back home. Oh, on Sunday morning the tide was way out and it was like I discovered sand dollar heaven. They were everywhere. If I had a bucket I would have loved to collected more, but I decided on just one. After being in Westport and watching the hoards of people happily surf there, I decided it can't be too bad, so I'm hoping to try surfing in WA-probably next summer. I've always been a snob when it comes to surfing (only can be done on Maui where the sun is hot and you don't have to put on a wetsuit) but I think I might give it a whirl!